No One Asked Them for ID: Is Groupie Culture to Blame for the Savile Scandal?

In 1974, a BBC reporter named Martin Young hit the road with Jimmy Savile while covering one of the eccentric British broadcasting star’s famous charity runs. Savile was a major celebrity in the U.K., and fans would often surround his camper van when he passed through a town. Among the crowds were usually young girls. “Jimmy could have who he wanted,” Young recalled on BBC television’s Panorama on Oct. 22. So when Young walked in on Savile lying in the bed of his camper van with a teenage girl, Young said he didn’t report it to anyone simply because “it never even crossed my mind.”

It’s hard to comprehend anyone now having such a reaction to seeing a man in bed with a teenager. But ever since a documentary on a commercial TV channel in Britain exposed the star, who died last year, as a pedophile, stories similar to Young’s have surfaced in the press. It seems that for as long as Savile had been preying on underage girls, there have been people like Young who witnessed it. Which raises the unsettling question: Why didn’t anyone stop Savile?

(MORE: Beyond the BBC: The Jimmy Savile Scandal Grows)

We now know that Savile targeted vulnerable girls, notably in hospitals and other institutions. But back in the 1960s and ’70s, his colleagues only saw a piece of the Savile story. And that piece fit exactly into what was known — and expected — of celebrities at the time. Savile reached the height of his career during the heyday of rock ‘n’ roll, when free love was in and groupie culture was just starting to make a name for itself. The biggest stars had girls lining up for them and, by most accounts, no one stopped to ask for proof of age. Backstage at rock shows, according to biographer Philip Norman, the author of books on the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, there were scenes of “depravity to rival the Roman Empire.”

But you didn’t have to go behind the scenes to hear about the underage groupies. Rock songs sometimes dwelled on the allure of young girls. The 1968 Rolling Stones song “Stray Cat Blues” had Mick Jagger crooning the lines “I can see that you’re 15 years old/ No I don’t want your ID … It’s no hanging matter/ It’s no capital crime.” Such lyrics today, Norman points out, “might bring a knock on the door from the police,” but back then it was all part of the “rock-star iconography.”

(MORE: Catherine Mayer on the Violation of Trust)

And it seemed some rockers practiced what they preached. Elvis Presley began dating his future wife Priscilla when she was only 14. In Los Angeles in the early 1970s, a group of 13- and 14-year-old girls earned the nickname “baby groupies” for allegedly having sex with well-known rock stars. Even established news outlets sometimes didn’t flinch at the phenomenon. A 1969 TIME article on groupie culture insouciantly notes that, “[Frank] Zappa contends that there are thousands of them, ranging in age all the way from 50 (‘Although they have to look damned good at that age to get any action’) down to ten. Their appeal is obvious.” The article does not mention that having sex with children is a crime.

As the free-love ideal waned in the 1980s, and child abuse became an increasingly discussed topic in the U.S., Britain and other countries, sex with minors became distinctly uncool. And, oh yes, it was illegal. The change in attitudes about underage sex may, however, have simply made celebrities more circumspect. According to British music manager Sarah Bowden, groupie culture remains as strong today, but no one is eager to brag about it, if only “because of the media outrage over people who sleep with girls under 16.”

Especially now as the Savile scandal grows by the day. Police are pursuing a line of investigation they’ve dubbed “Savile and others,” and on Oct. 28 they arrested former glam rock star and convicted sex offender Gary Glitter, who was a friend of Savile, on suspicion of further sex offenses. So it’s hardly surprising that veteran publicist Max Clifford claims he’s been contacted by dozens of celebrities who are “concerned” about their own pasts. But while the likes of Zappa were guilty of exploiting these girls, it’s unlikely that anyone would describe them as predators the way one would Savile.

(MORE: Head of BBC to Face Inquiry on Pedophile Cover-Up)

Though he wasn’t as famous as the musicians who would appear on the TV and radio shows he hosted, it’s now obvious that Savile’s sense of entitlement likely rivaled even the most egomaniacal of stars. He used his fame to gain access to and exploit potentially hundreds of vulnerable girls and at least two boys. But to his colleagues back then who only caught a glimpse of his attraction to underage girls — and saw the crowds of young fans he was often photographed with — Savile surely appeared to be just another star with his own gaggle of groupies.

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